Seeking a Bin Laden fight

By Alexander Burns

12/20/11 03:40 PM EST

Retired four-star Gen. Wesley Clark is taking a fresh turn as a Democratic national security spokesman this afternoon, pushing back on Mitt Romney's statement that "any president" would have ordered the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.

"President Obama made a courageous decision to send in troops to take down Osama bin Laden. The risks were real, and the price of failure would have been acute," Clark said in a statement sent over by a Democratic official. "It would have been far safer and easier to bomb, but we might never have known for sure whether we got our target -- emboldening our enemies. President Obama made the right call. It was the tough call. And our nation is safer today. I would think that all Americans who appreciate presidential responsibilities would understand the gravity of this decision in our current international security environment."

Clark's comments come in reaction to a days-old interview with Romney on "Fox News Sunday," in which the former Massachusetts governor didn't criticize the Bin Laden raid (he actually praised it) but implied that the accomplishment didn't illustrate anything particularly special about President Barack Obama.

"We're delighted that he gave the order to take out Osama bin Laden. Any president would have done that," Romney said. "But this one did and that's a good thing."

The Democrats' desire to spar with Romney over the Bin Laden issue is a mark of how eager the party is to engage the GOP front-runner, in general, and also how protective they are over one of the few totally uncontroversial, broadly acclaimed achievements the White House has to run on.